Quills

The Marquis de Sade (Rush) was a French aristocrat whose controversial sexual literature helped coin the term "Sadism". His pornographic writings were well read by the public at the time, although banned by Napoleon, and remained forbidden in France until the 1960s.

Quills is set during the last few years of de Sade's life, when he was imprisoned in a mental asylum after the French Revolution. The Abbe de Coulmier (Phoenix) hopes to treat him through the therapy of writing and his works are smuggled out of the asylum to a publisher by his laundry girl (Winslet).

As could probably be imagined, Napoleon is not too impressed by this, after all, he's had a bad few years with the Revolution and all that. As a result, a conservative doctor and moralist, Antoine Royer-Collard (Caine) is despatched, along with his more inhumane techniques, to silence the Marquis.

The plot becomes a battle of wills between the Marquis and Dr. Royer-Collard. Slowly, Royer-Collard forces Coulmier to take the Marquis' writing tools from him. When his paper, quills, and ink jars are taken, the Marquis writes in wine with a chicken bone on his bed linens - and this is the least inventive he gets.

Quills is not entirely historically correct, and contains little information on precisely why de Sade is in the situation we find him in, but this is more than made up for by the fantastic acting by all of the cast. Rush is brilliant in bringing the Marquis to life, portraying a whole range of emotions from obsessive adoration to outraged disgust. The rest of the performances are equally good. Inconbimation with sharp directing, Quills is a must-see film.

Ben Goddard